tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 09 03:18:59 1994
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Re: Adams Family Motto:
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Adams Family Motto:
- Date: Wed, 9 Feb 94 13:36:07 EST
On Feb 9, 11:40am, Mark Reed wrote:
> ...I still think
> {leghlaHghach} is the best way to say "vision". Let's not overreact
> back the other way about this whole -ghach business. Yes, it was
> overused, but it is still a very useful suffix that provides the most
> succinct ways of expressing certain concepts in thlIngan Hol.
>
> -marqoS
To clarify my position on this, I do agree that {leghlaHghach} is the
best word for "vision". As such, it is a lovely word. I do not believe that
it is in any way a "bad" word, though I do believe that it is one far more
likely to occur on the lips of an English speaker than a Klingon. English
speakers nominalize EVERYTHING and then use some variation on the verb "to
be" to tie together all these nouns.
I see both "to be" and nominalized verbs in Klingon to be like spices in
cooking. Used in the right places, they make meaning concise and clear. When
sentences are constantly dominated by them in a text, it becomes quickly
clear that one is not speaking in Klingon. One is instead translating English
words into Klingon words and then reversing the subject and object and
calling it tlhIngan Hol. In reality, there is more to it than that.
I do not expect everyone to start out speaking like a native Klingon. In
the beginning, we DO translate each English word into a corresponding Klingon
word and reverse the subject and object. We then go on to play with the
various grammatical constructions. Eventually, we begin to think simple
sentences in Klingon without needing to come up with the English words first.
My wish is not to bash people for learning the language in stages like
this. My intent is to discourage the most common bad habits before they
become a permanent part of what we take to be Klingon. If I don't speak out
to discourage the overuse of all of the how-can-I-work-the-word-"to-be"-into-
a-Klingon-sentence and the how-can-I-form-this-nominalized-verb tendencies,
then Klingon will become a pidgeon dialect of English.
paSchugh wanI'vam vaj Do'Ha'
charghwI'